Here is a picture I nabbed from Ed Tritschlers blog. Last month we made our way to Camp Neotez. This is one beauty of a place, which I am sure we will be seeing plenty of in the coming years.

Ed, hopefully I haven't broken any copyright laws. I'll be glad to pay a royalty fee.

This has been a busy few weeks. Last weekend we left for NYC (sans kid) for a few days of R & R. We saw them do the Today show on Friday, went to Little Italy (which lives up to the name--it's only 3 blocks long or so) for lunch, and had some great Mexican food that evening. It seems that Chinatown has almost overtaken Little Italy. As one friend from the area put it: The Chineese love to work, and the Italians like to sit around and drink wine.

All, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Email from Marsha in CO

RECALL NOTICE
The Maker of all human beings is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due to a serious defect in the primary and central component of the heart.
This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named Adam and Eve, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units.
This defect has been technically termed "Subsequential Internal Non-Morality," or more commonly known as S.I.N., as it is primarily expressed.
Some other symptoms include:
1. Loss of direction
2. Foul vocal emissions
3. Amnesia of origin
4. Lack of peace and joy
5. Selfish or violent behavior
6. Depression or confusion in the mental component
7. Fearfulness
8. Idolatry
9. Rebellion

The Manufacturer, who is neither liable nor at fault for this defect, is providing factory-authorized repair and service free of charge to correct this SIN defect. The Repair Technician, Jesus, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. There is no additional fee required.
The number to call for repair in all areas is: P-R-A-Y-E-R
Once connected, please upload your burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Jesus, into the heart component. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is,
Jesus will replace it with:
1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Patience
5. Kindness
6. Goodness
7. Faithfulness
8. Gentleness
9. Self control

Please see the operating manual, the B.I.B.L.E. (Believers' Instructions Before Leaving Earth) for further details on the use of these fixes.

WARNING: Continuing to operate the human being unit without correction voids any manufacturer warranties, exposing the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list and will result in the human unit being permanently impounded.

For free emergency service, call on Jesus.

DANGER: The human being units not responding to this recall action will have to be scrapped in the furnace. The SIN defect will not be permitted to enter Heaven so as to prevent contamination of that facility. Thank you for your attention!

GOD

Please assist where possible by notifying others of this important recall notice, and you may contact the Father any time by "kneemail."

Here is a pic of Benny and his friend Julia (neighbors granddaughter). We pulled them in our wagon 2 times around the block -of course they loved going fast on the downhill section.

I'm taking a sick day today, and working from home. I just finished some bookwork for the accountant, and wanted to post a few pics of Benny. One is him rocking out to Jimmy Buffett's version of Uncle Johns Band (although I have to turn down the cuss word each time). The other is of him sitting at the kids clothing store in downtown Kirkwood. We are missing one of his red shoes-If you can find it, there will be a nice finders fee. Kids shoes aren't cheap!

What a beautiful day.

The good news: It's 74 degrees.
The bad news: Well, it feels like 73 degrees with the wind chill factor.

Am I dreaming, or is this November? It's one of those days that makes me feel like putting on Jimmy Buffett, which is what I'm going to do. Don't worry, Benny is fast becoming a JB fan.

Jackpot! Our videocamera has photo capability, and for the past several months we have been taking pictures. I didn't realize until last night we could easily download the pics on the computer.


Benny and his cousins

Carissa at the zoo

Cassady doing a dance routine

Here are some legit pictures of Jason and Amanda. We are soooo excited about their little girl, and can't wait to hop a plane to see Emily. If you would like to keep up with what's happening, click on "The Carters" to the right. Feel free to email her if there are spelling, grammatical, or general English errors in her posts. She would appreciate it.

...and then there were 4

We have some great friends from out of state that just received their referral for Emily, who for now resides in the Jiangxi province in China (I think). To celebrate, I wanted to post some very flattering pictures of the new parents. These were taken in Virginia last Thanksgiving.

Emily is their first daughter. Jason and Amanda's first kid is Charley, their extremely loyal and spoiled pooch. For you Colorado folks that don't have their blog address, give me a shout and I'll forward it. Amanda, let me know if I can publish a link to your blog.

Wow, what a fun time at Trunk or Treat the other night at McKnight. Here are a few snapshots, but hats off to the Coles and the Martins (I am sure among others) for a great night.

If your church doesn't have these each year..suggest it. Similar to the Fall Festival in Littleton, this is a great outreach activity to the community.

St Louis has a neat tradition of not merely coming up to the door expecting candy. The kids have to work for it with a joke. Last year the winning joke was this:
Tiny girl: What does a fish say when it hits a wall
Us: I don't know...what?
Tiny girl: Dam !

This year the winning joke goes like this:
Chubby kid: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
Us: A stick?
Chubby kid: Nope. Defective Merchandise!

Yeah: Small and big kids dressing up for fun
Nay: Big kids dressed up as Colts leaving Denver with a last minute win

"Serenity Now"

The title of this post is a not-too-obscure reference from Seinfeld. If you can't let things go...just try repeating Serentiy Now. Of course that remedy proved to be full of holes on that episode. It reminds me of my longstanding problem of needing to be at church on time (or anywhere else for that matter).

Now, I don't have the best memory in the world, but one I do have is of our yellow 1973 Pontiac Catalina idling in front of our mailbox on the occasional Sunday morning-with the horn blaring as if to say hurry the heck up, we got a long drive ahead with places to go and people to see. The funny thing is that we only lived a few blocks from the church building. I indeed inherited this trait. I want to pack up, load Benny, and lay on that horn. In the same way that smokers need that first drag to reduce tension, I have this delusion that hitting that horn will give me the same satisfaction. As my wife reminds me-I do my best sinnin' in my singular effort to drag everyone to the building on time.

Tday was no different. One would think it would have been different, since we were the scheduled Greeters. After all, don't they usually show up earlier than everyone else to actually greet? However my Love decided she needed to have a bit of breakfast. "It will only take a minute" says she, as we whip into McD's. "I'll even go in". My inner voice is chanting, Serenity Now, over and over. After 5 minutes I finally decide not to be stressed out. I turn on Jimmy Buffett, and look at my surroundings. Lo and behold I saw these signs at Walgreens. I cracked up and lost all my high blood pressure and tension.